“At least 40 companies including Apple Inc., Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. were targeted in malware attacks linked to an Eastern European gang of hackers that is trying steal company secrets, two people familiar with the matter said,” Michael Riley and Adam Satariano report for Bloomberg.

“Apple, one of three victims to publicly disclose attacks this month, said some of its internal Mac systems were affected by a malware attack,” Riley and Satariano report. “The hackers used an iPhone-developer website, according to the people familiar with law enforcement efforts, including investigations by the FBI and Secret Service, and didn’t want to be identified because of the probe.”

Riley and Satariano report, “The attack is part of the same series of invasions that also led to recently disclosed breaches at Facebook and Twitter, according to investigators working with the companies. Apple was the first to discover the attack, one of the people said. The hackers appear to be seeking company secrets, research and intellectual property they can sell underground, the people familiar with the matter said. While such attacks have previously been associated with China, sophisticated criminals in other countries have now successfully hacked corporate networks.”

MacDailyNews Note: Reportedly, the attacks used a Java vulnerability or vulnerabilities. Apple issued a Java update yesterday which uninstalls the Apple-provided Java applet plug-in from all web browsers. To use Java applets, users must get the latest version of the Java applet plug-in directly from Oracle.